Wuyi Mountains

The Wuyi mountains are a Danxia landscape of red sandstone peaks and cliffs cut by the Nine Bend Stream, which is descended on bamboo rafts poled by two boatmen through nine curves over about nine kilometres, the classic way to see the scenery. UNESCO listed the area in 1999 for both landscape and culture: cliff burials placed in crevices thousands of years ago, the ruins of a Han city, and the academy where Zhu Xi taught in the twelfth century, shaping neo-Confucian thought for centuries. The mountains also produce yancha, rock tea, oolongs grown in cliff crevices including Da Hong Pao, from bushes that have sold at extraordinary prices.

What you actually see

• The Nine Bend Stream - the bamboo raft descent through red cliffs.
• The rock tea gardens - oolong grown in crevices, including the Da Hong Pao bushes.
• The cliff burials - boat-shaped coffins placed in crevices millennia ago.
• The Zhu Xi academy - the neo-Confucian teaching site.

When to go

April to June and September to November; the tea harvest is in May. Summer is hot and crowded, and heavy rain closes the rafts. Winter is cool and quiet. Raft tickets are timed and sell out in season.

Honest expectations

Raft tickets must be booked and are timed; queues in season are long. The area ticket plus raft plus internal buses adds up. Da Hong Pao from the original bushes is not commercially available, and most sold under that name is not from them.

Nearby

Wuyishan city lies east; the Jiangxi border is north.